Monthly Archives: March 2019

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When it comes to lolly-gagging,
dilly-dallying, and dawdling, I am pretty hard to beat.

Now, mind you, if I have a set deadline,
I will meet it with time to spare.

But, if you give me some loosey goosey
time frame, I will put tasks off until the end of time, or at least the very
last minute until I have to rush to finish.

I was bad about doing this in school.

Once, I had a project due for a countywide
competition for the local schools. In order to do the project, I needed a certain
book, which I did not have but another student in my class did. Granny called the
student’s mother to see if she was finished using the book and was told no.

“If there is only one book, shouldn’t
there be time limits as to how long you get the book?” Granny asked the mother.
The child had had it since the first ding dang day we knew about the competition.

“I don’t know that it will do Sudie any
good since the entry is due Monday,” the mother replied. “In fact, it may be
too late for her to even get started on it.”

For the record, it was Saturday night.
In my young mind, I had plenty of time.

Granny frowned as she gave me a hard
sideways glare. I had managed to omit that tiny little tidbit of information. “Well,
don’t you worry,” Granny began. “She will get it done and turned in on time.”

When she hung up the phone, Granny
turned to me. “How long did you know about this here project?”

“A few days.”

“A few days? I see. Was it several days
strung together into a number of weeks?”

I didn’t know what to say. It was clear I
didn’t have nearly as much time to get something done as I thought.

“You know it is due Monday, right?”
Granny asked.

I nodded. I had one whole day, minus
church, and the remaining hours of Saturday to research this project and write
up my paper.

Granny sighed.

“Why, oh, why did you wait until the
last minute, child?”

“But, I didn’t,” I said. “The last
minute would be Monday morning when it is supposed to be turned in.”

This made the old woman sigh again.

“Get in the car,” she ordered.

I wasn’t sure what she was going to do.
Maybe we were going to the other child’s house and Granny was going to bargain
for the book. Were we going to the library? Where ever it was, she meant
business.

Neither happened. Instead, Granny and I drove
around our county, looking at those historical markers and doing our own
research. We went to the courthouse and even counted the windows to provide
detail.

I was exhausted when I got home.
“Now, you sit down and write this,” she said.

“I’ve got tomorrow,” I began.

“Littl’ un, you park your tater in that
chair. What if something happens tomorrow and you can’t write it? You are getting
this done right now.”
The look on her face made me sit down at the table and keep my procrastinating
mouth shut.

After church the next day, I worked on
it some more, until finally I had it completed.

“I am so glad to be done with this!” I exclaimed.

Granny frowned. “This wouldn’t have been
so difficult if you had started working on it sooner. There is no reason
whatsoever for you to have waited until it was due to start it. To do it right,
you should have started on it several weeks ago.”

“But, Granny, it is not due until
tomorrow!” I said. How could I not get her to realize that?

“If it’s due on Monday, it’s as good as
being due this weekend. You knew about it long enough to get started on it
weeks ago. You should have had a few weeks to properly research it and then at
least two to write and change it. Let
that be a lesson to you.”

And in some ways, it was.

Granny’s words taught me to prepare and
look ahead at what needed to be done, so I could plan accordingly. I don’t like
that feeling of being rushed and worrying about if something happens and I can’t
get a task completed.

I don’t like thinking I have something hanging
out there that needs to be done.

I don’t like it, mind you; but that
doesn’t stop me from procrastinating in the least bit.

Doodle, Boo, Boo-Anne – the little
pittie mix has several different names to go along with her various attitudes.

And her attitude this time was full of sass.

“She doesn’t know to bark,” I replied.

She doesn’t. Her main defense was just
looking at something real hard as if her stare was intimidating.

So far, it had worked with the garbage
men, FedEx, and our mail lady. All of them had grown accustomed to seeing the
little caramel colored pibble in the window, her steady gaze warning them of impending
doom at the first sign of a threat.

But bark? Never.

The most she has ever done is whimper
when she wasn’t getting the attention she thought she deserved.

I didn’t even think she knew how to
bark.

She once screamed when a squirrel threw
a pinecone at her. A scream is not a bark.

“You need to get on to her for barking
at me,” Mama said.

I am no sure what Mama thought I was
going to do exactly. Put the pittie in time out? Take away her favorite toy?

“Mama, she thought she was either protecting
herself or me. You have threatened for years now that you were going to take
her; she was left alone in the living room with you and probably thought you
may very well try.”

Mama grunted at my Doodle logic.

“It was rude,” Mama said.

“She’s a dog, Mama! She doesn’t have
manners!”

Mama didn’t agree and thought Boo-Anne
should know who to bark at and who she shouldn’t.

As Mama took great umbrage at being
barked at, Doodle put her little head in my lap and pawed at me to pet her.

When I didn’t, she stood on her hind legs
and put one paw on my shoulder to pull me closer to her, pushing her little
head into my face for a kiss.

Upon not getting quite as much petting and
kissing as she thought she needed, she jumped up in my lap, nearly sending my
laptop into the floor.

“See – she has no manners. None!” Mama
declared.

“She is a dog, Mama.”
“She doesn’t know that,” Mama said. She may be right.

Boo has never been treated like a dog. She
has always been babied and catered to like a toddler; granted, a spoiled,
petulant toddler at times but a toddler, nonetheless.

She has always had her way and many
decisions have been made based on what Doodle likes.

“Why do you leave the t.v. on when you
go somewhere?” Mama asked once.

“Yeah, but they are kind of boring. Ava
sleeps and Punky only wants to herd. Boo needs her entertainment.”

Boo loves old Road Runner cartoons and
reruns of the Golden Girls and Murder, She Wrote, in case anyone is wondering.

I could almost hear Mama rolling her
eyes at me.

“I’m still going to get that mean little
dog, even though she barked at me.”
“Oh, my stars. Are you ever going to let that go?”

“No.”
To Mama, Doodle barking was just a grave insult. Ava had barked but only when
she was outside. Once she came in, Ava promptly ran to Mama to be petted. It may
have also had something to do with the fact Mama had food.

Punky doesn’t really bark; she is used
to them. She hasn’t gotten used to the garbage men though and still barks incessantly
at them each and every time they show up. Doodle, on the other paw, remains
silent as they rob our trash can, stoically watching and waiting.

“And only barking at me,” Mama reminds
me.

“Mama, I’m telling you. Doodle thought
you were going to puppy nap her. She wouldn’t know what to do if she was
anywhere but here where she’s treated like a baby. And you can say you want her
all you want but you wouldn’t know how to handle this little mess.”

I don’t know that anyone would be able
to handle this little pup with the multiple names. I shudder when I think how differently
her life may have been had I not got her from the people giving away puppies in
the Wal-Mart parking lot six years ago. Would her funny little personality have
emerged, full of sass and spunk, and love and adoration? Would she have loved
another child the way she did mine, being super-protective of him and cuddling
close? Would she sleep on anyone else’s head the way she did mine or beside my
legs, keeping me warm?

As I pondered all these things, I realized
she was lying by my chair where I could not get up.

“You’re scared of her,” Mama declared.

“I am not.”
“Yes, you are. You are scared of that little mean dog!”

I’m not. But I was aware that Boo could
also make me feel very bad about upsetting her routine.

She also had no problems seeking revenge
on shoes, makeup, or other items she knew I really liked and enjoyed.

“I’m not scared of her,” I insisted. “I don’t
need to get up right now.”

There have been a few words I have tried
to eradicate from my child’s vocabulary.

Fat is one of them.

Retarded is another.

These are words that have bothered me for
various reasons for a long time.

Fat is a word that taunted me as a child
and is a word I have called myself, even in the times I was frighteningly
skinny.

Retarded is a word that just shouldn’t
be said.

There are other words that are just
hurtful as well, and they all vary in their sting depending on their intent.

Does that mean bad words don’t sometimes
fall out of my mouth for various reasons?
I’m not about to lie and say they don’t.

In moments of anger I have heatedly used
hurtful epitaphs, not to anyone’s face mind you, but I have uttered them in furious
outbursts, usually in the confines of my car or locked in the bathroom.

Not some of my finest moments.

Other words have floated around lately,
words that I thought had been stricken from the vernacular, that created conversations
as to the power, weight, and importance of words.

More importantly, the conversation focused
on how some words can be used to hurt and are never okay, regardless of the
relationship between the people using them.

And as I try to be vigilant about the words
that are uttered and said about people, two words that I didn’t even think
about have found themselves on my radar.

Dumb and stupid.

Being a parent makes one hyper-aware of
the words that are said.

You expect the occasional swear word to slip
out as a means of pushing the boundaries.

You wait for a teacher to send you a
note saying your child repeated words that are unacceptable and she wonders where
he heard them.

Dumb and stupid seem to be innocent words,
uttered about things that are common and everyday.

“That’s so stupid,” I have muttered
under my breath when I hear something I don’t agree with.

“How dumb,” has been whispered about instructions
on the back of the pizza box.

It wasn’t until I heard the words come
out of my child’s mouth that I realized how these words that seemed so benign
to a degree could hurt.

He wasn’t even saying the words in a
mean manner. But hearing him say them made me realize how hurtful they could
be.

“Who was dumb?” I asked for
clarification.

“Not who, Mama. What. And it was the
rules. The rules are so dumb and stupid.”

I can understand feeling that way as a
teenager. Rules do feel that way at times, even when we are adults, and we
appreciate them.

“So, it wasn’t a person?”

He shook his head no.

“Why would that matter?” he asked sincerely.

It would matter for many reasons, I thought.

But I could see what was confusing. We
say things – and people – are dumb and stupid all the time.

We do it to be funny, to be mean, to be hateful,
and even when we are just irritated by them.

Mama has always taken offense when I have
commented something she said was dumb or stupid.

“I am not stupid,” she said.
“I didn’t say you were,” I reply.

“You said my reaction was stupid; that’s
the same thing.”
“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”
In my mind, it wasn’t but most of our communication is the other person’s
perception of what we said. If we are belittling them or at least make them
feel like we are making fun of them, odds are they won’t listen to us.

“I don’t like those words,” I told my
child after thinking about some of the heavier implications.

He was confused; they have been words he’s
heard me say.

“Why?”

“Because calling someone dumb or stupid
is not nice,” I said. “Someone can’t help that.”

“They can’t?” he asked.

“No, they can’t. Dumb traditionally
speaks more to their intellect, or capacity to learn. Not everyone learns at the same speed or level.
So, I really don’t like that word at all.”

He understood that part.

“What about stupid?” he asked. “Is it
the same?”

I took a deep breathe. In my mind, stupid
was different. Stupid could mean someone was choosing to be ignorant despite the
information that had been presented to them.

Stupid, I explained, had some
application in certain circumstances as long as it was used to address an
action or behavior and not a person.

He nodded.
“So, it is better to call someone’s actions stupid but not the person. And never
dumb.”

“Right,” I said. “But it would just be
better if we didn’t use it at all. We need to think about how we would feel if
someone said that to us.”

Perhaps, if we did that, none of our
words would have a hurtful sting.

“Old woman, I cannot read your recipe,”
is how I began many a phone call to Granny after I moved away.

“What does it say, old gal?” she would
ask.

“I don’t know. You have the worst
penmanship I have ever seen.”

“Maybe if you had paid attention when I was
making it, you wouldn’t need the recipe,” she commented.

I sighed.

Granny’s idea of baking would probably
drive modern day bakers and chefs crazy.

She didn’t really use measuring cups or
spoons, preferring to eyeball her ingredients, a cardinal sin in baking.

“You are supposed to use exact
measurements,” I told her once.

She gave me a sideways glance and
ignored my comment.

When I married, I wanted to have her
best recipes with me so I could continue some of her traditions, so I asked her
to write them down.

“No.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I said no. I ain’t giving
you my recipes. They mine.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“They mine. I ain’t writing them down. I
ain’t never wrote ‘em down – someone could steal ‘em that way. And I ain’t
about to start either.”

Steal her recipes? Did she not know that
people could find recipes for things practically anywhere? To Granny, her
recipes were sacred and top secret; surely no one else could be trusted with
the power to make a biscuit.

Still, I was shocked. Was she really not
going to share her recipes with me?

Maybe I should have wrote it down when I
was with her, but it never occurred to me that she would not me give a recipe.

I also was a little hurt. Granny had
been the one who taught me how to cook, standing me in a chair beside her or
sitting me on the table as she sifted flour, patted out biscuits, or mixed cake
batter. How could she take away something so precious she and I had always
bonded over?

“One. You can have one,” she announced
one day.

“One what?”

“One recipe of mine. Choose wisely.”

I felt like Indiana Jones being told to
choose the cup that was the Holy Grail in the Last Crusade.

I thought about it for a minute.

“I want your biscuit recipe,” I said.

“What? Are you kidding me? You’ve been
making biscuits with me since you were three; if you don’t know how to make biscuits
20 years later, you don’t need to be in the kitchen. Choose another one.”

“But I can’t remember what you put in
them,” I said earnestly. Everyone raved about her biscuits; I wanted
rave-worthy biscuits, too.

She frowned, partly in disappointment
that I could not remember and partly in the fact she was conceding her own rule
and going to give me two recipes.

“Alright, I will give you the biscuit
one, too, but it is so simple it is ridiculous,” she said. “What else do you
want?”

I thought a little longer. I knew I wouldn’t
be able to handle her coconut cake recipe; that involved too many steps. Things
like pot roast or her golden fried chicken were not at the top of my list
either. I wanted something that when I made it, people proclaimed it tasted
just like Helen’s.

“Your chocolate pound cake recipe,” I declared
brazenly.

She inhaled sharply. “You want me to
write all that down?”

I nodded.

“Alright. I will. But it’s gonna take
some time. I ain’t even got it wrote down; I just do it from memory, something
you should be able to do.”

“That’s the one I want, Granny,” I said.

She nodded. “And that’s the one you will
get.”

A few days later, the smell of the
chocolate pound cake permeated the house and she handed me two index cards, one
smudged with chocolate.

“I had to make one, so I’d know what all
I put in it,” she said. “Don’t you go being like that woman that sold that high-dollar
cookie recipe. You sell my recipes and I will sue you.”

Gleefully, I tucked the cards into my purse
for safe keeping and went to eat the fruits of her labor.

It wasn’t until about a month later,
when I pulled them out that I noticed something was missing. I called her.
“Old woman, this makes no sense.”

“It should make perfect sense.”
“Well, it doesn’t,” I protested. “You only have flour, Crisco, and water or
milk. No measurements.”

“It depends on how many biscuits you
want to make. You should know that part. Now I gotta go, the Wheel is on, but
you call me back if you need to. At 7:30.”

The next day I called her to tell her
the dough did not turn out right.

“You
gotta get your hands in the dough,” Granny said.

“That’s gross,” I protested.

“You want biscuits? You gotta get your hands
in there. Did you ever see me mix dough with a spoon? No, you gotta get your
hands a little dirty if you want to cook.”

It took me a few tries – and several
phone calls and a reminder from Granny about her super top-secret biscuit trick
she omitted off the recipe – but soon, I was a biscuit baking master.

I should have known if she called that
recipe easy her chocolate pound cake one would be a doozy.

Every time I made her cake, it involved staying
on the phone with Granny.

“I couldn’t read a word the woman wrote,”
I told Mama. “And what I could read, I couldn’t understand. She had just ‘cocoa
powder’ or ‘butter’ but didn’t put down how much.”

Mama laughed softly. “Well, Kitten, if
Granny used butter, more than likely it was one of two measurements: the whole
stick or the whole pound. For a cake, go with a pound, just to be safe.

“And her leaving off the actual measurements
was just her way of making you have to call her every time you made it so she
would talk to you.”

“Yeah,” I said, finally understanding
some of the Redhead Prime’s stubbornness.